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-- Teaching Old Dog New Tricks. (Thanks, Laura Bell) (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=928412786)

Teaching Old Dog New Tricks. (Thanks, Laura Bell)

First let me say that I have never met Laura but consider her a friend. I have a few nice paintings Laura made me in the store, which get positive comments all the time.
About six months to a year ago she put some comments on the board about giving dogs TREATS. I in my smart butt way made fun of it and talked about shooting the gun at the tree and giving the dog a treat instead of the coon.

Well let me tell you one thing, her post changed a lot of my thinking and I do use a lot of positive training methods now that I never used before. I was from the old school of " I give a dog a command, and it better do it" or feel some pain.

I have accomplished more with Treats in less time and with less frustration than I ever did a switch. We shoot very few coon and if we take a dog off the tree without shooting a coon, it gets a TREAT. I have two dogs I keep close to the house on concrete in 5 by 10 pens. I let them out each morning and evening to run and all I have to do is walk to the pen door and they go right in and wait for their treat. They don't get it 100% of the time but they do enough to learn what to do.

Thanks, Laura

I agree, you can get a lot done with some dogs for many different things with just a big ole nasty salty potato chip...I got two blueticks that I believe I could train to shuffle cards for a chip. They don't respond to much else, but both of them love anything to eat. They almost always get a treat at the tree instead of killing a coon. It just makes sense.
Treats will not work for everything or with all dogs. I have a young walker that will turn his nose up to a piece of steak in exchange for some attention and being petted. Needless to say he is one of the best handling nicest dogs I have ever seen.
There are few posters on here that tell others "just keep hunting him and giving him treats, he will go ahead and tree, quit running deer and fox, quit barking all the time, etc." Sorry folks, wont fix those kinds of things.

Re: Teaching Old Dog New Tricks. (Thanks, Laura Bell)

quote:

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Originally posted by Bruce M. Conkey
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Bruce a good friend of mine one time told that dogs are like kids if you want a positive reaction from one give them some type of reward to reinforce that positive action. So I carry hot dogs cut into little chunks when i go hunting and it works really good. He also caught me shooting a possum out once and jumped my butt. He told why in the world would i shot a possum out to the dog to whip them. He told me that that dog would associate that with shooting out the coon. He said just give the dog a little whipping and a good chewing and he would know not to do it again and it works.

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Glad it's working out for you!! I was just introduced to the positive training method last year and it's a super thing! I can't say enough nice things about it. Even for as stubborn as Coonhounds are, they are so food motivated that they learn quick.
I'll get a video up soon of my dog doing several tricks that were all taught with the positive method.

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No, this isn't a Coonhound, but it's a still a dog that has learned 99% of her stuff with positive reinforcement training.
She'll sit, speak, shake, sit in a chair, touch your hand with her nose, come, go thru your legs, back thru your legs, weave thru your legs, roll over, down, spin, twirl, sit pretty, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92U...eature=youtu.be

The Coonhound haven't learned as much as my Aussie, but in their defense, I don't work them as hard as I should because I was getting my Aussie ready for Agility.

My Coonhounds excel at coming when called and not running out of the pen even with the door open. They are not to jump on the door and are to wait until I tell them "OK" before they can come out. I have a video of that too, I'll see if I can find it.

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Laura, I am glad there are people like you willing to share, even if some of the stubborn old folks poke fun at you. That is the great thing about this board that sometimes gets lost in all the "my idea is better than yours". We can all learn from one another if we just take a deep breath and listen to what is really being said.

Whew, at first I thought this post was from my wife, but thank goodness it is not.

Bruce and Laura one of the best treats that always gets good results is freeze dried liver. This stuff works great! The best thing is it doesn't take up much space in a coat pocket. You can get it commercially through Fosters and Smith or you can make it on your stove and oven.

First get some liver, I don't eat the stuff bad childhood memories of rubber meat. First of all, biol it on stove until it is cooked through. Then use a meat mallet and flatten it to about 1/2" or less. The place on a cookie sheet and sprinkle garlic salt on the flattened liver. Then place the cookie sheet in the oven at 150-200 and heat until it looks like old shoe leather. A good pair of scissors will make short work of cutting it into about 1/2" squares.

I have never seen a dog turn its nose up at dried liver.

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Aim small miss small

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Larry what I like is the BACON TREATS. Smells so good and looks so real it is tempting not to try.

Bruce I tried this once, but my dog was so honed in on treeing she didn't want anything to do with the treat?

I'm assuming this works better if started from day one?

When do you give the treat?

I do use treats a lot early on with obedience to teach commands. I also use feeding times a lot to teach social manners, check out my developing a training program post. I updated it with some videos of some feeding exercises, I use. I agree though most hunters training is heavily weighted towards negative correction and lacks balance. A reward/bonus is a great motivator for human or dog. Any leader can go around with their chest puffed out and bang on heads when things have hit the fan, but a true leader will motivate and inspire loyalty from his or hers followers. Ceaser Millans "Be the pack leader" book is mainly centered around this principle.

I have been fooling around some with making my dogs sit at the tree, trying to add a calmer environment around the tree. I believe when training bomb dogs or something along those lines, they are taught from day one to sit and bark, then they get there reward. Not jumping around acting like an idiot.

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I give the treat when we take the dog off the tree and start out. About the same time your saying " Good Boy" lets go.

Hot dogs seem like they would work good, but I didn't have any luck with them. By the time the dog did something good and was due a piece of hot dog I had already ate them all.

quote:

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Originally posted by msinc
Hot dogs seem like they would work good, but I didn't have any luck with them. By the time the dog did something good and was due a piece of hot dog I had already ate them all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by shadinc
msinc, you're the guy that needs to use dried liver. LOL

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We use positive reinforcement with our bird dogs. It works wonders for wanted and unwanted behavior for them. I just started doing it last week with my hounds. So far it seems to work well.

P.S. They make treats that are liver flavored and are easier to carry than the actual. They're small about the size of a dime and as thick as 2 nickels. Just food for thought.

All kidding aside, I used to use Slim Jim's and one day I gave a piece to this pup I had...3 hours later he unloaded about a half a pound {no B.S.} of round worms!!! I still feed Slim Jim's to dogs for a treat and round wormer but you can best believe I aint never ate one since!!!! And no, I am not trying to keep my "worms"...just sayin'!! [/B][/QUOTE]


Peppers are a natural wormer, antibiotic, and antiviral.

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Treat Time

SO......do you give a treat ONLY if the coon is SEEN?

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!

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Kind of like Trick or Treat. No coon they get the trick. Coon they get the Treat. Guess you could say the coon does also.

Had to stir the POT Bruce!!

Still love my BOSS light!!!

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!

We had some fun with this thread, but it's something we should also take seriously. To train an animal you have to have his attention. Treats definitely get their attention.

Hot dogs, Bil-Jac, Cheese, Bacon, lots of options out there. Just a matter of finding what drives your dog to think about ways to please you and get that treat.

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Larry I don't know why anyone would want to ruin liver like that.


I break all my dogs off of deer with hotdogs. When they get to running one I just drive over to where the deer comes out of the section and when the dog comes out throw them a hotdog and they will quit. Sometimes they like the hotdog so good that when they run across a deer track they come back looking for you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by berger
Larry I don't know why anyone would want to ruin liver like that.


I break all my dogs off of deer with hotdogs. When they get to running one I just drive over to where the deer comes out of the section and when the dog comes out throw them a hotdog and they will quit. Sometimes they like the hotdog so good that when they run across a deer track they come back looking for you.

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"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
Mark Twain

Everyone likes a dog that handles well, but i think anything that is going to have a young dogs mind on his handler and waiting for a treat is going to be a distraction in the woods. giveing a pup a treat at the tree sure seems like a good way to have one coming off the tree to find the guy with the pocket full of wieners.

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John my thoughts were exactly like yours. The treats have nothing to do with the dog treeing the coon in my opinion. I think since I started using treats for other positive reasons it makes us feel better to leave the tree positive if we don't harvest the coon. Trust me the results on some of the things are so positive I do have a concern and keep in mind of the dog thinking about a treat when it should be performing a coonhound function. If that ever happens it is back to old school.